Biodegradable controlled release systems for active agents are well known in the art. Biodegradable matrices for drug delivery are useful because they obviate the need to remove the drug-depleted device.
The most common matrix materials used for controlled release systems are polymers. The field of biodegradable polymers has developed rapidly since the synthesis and biodegradability of polylactic acid was reported by Kulkarni et al. (1966) Arch. Surg. 93:839. Examples of other polymers which have been reported as useful as a matrix material for controlled release systems include polyanhydrides, polyesters such as polyglycolides and polylactide-co-glycolides, polyamino acids such as polylysine, polymers and copolymers of polyethylene oxide, acrylic terminated polyethylene oxide, polyamides, polyurethanes, polyorthoesters, polyacrylonitriles, and polyphosphazenes. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,891,225 and 4,906,474 to Langer (polyanhydrides), 4,767,628 to Hutchinson (polylactide, polylactide-co-glycolide acid), 4,530,840 to Tice, et al. (polylactide, polyglycolide, and copolymers), and 5,234,520 (Dunn et al., biodegradable polymers for controlled delivery in treating periodontal disease).
Degradable materials of biological origin are well known including, for example, crosslinked gelatin. Hyaluronic acid has been crosslinked and used as a degradable swelling polymer for biomedical applications (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,744 and Della Valle et al. (1991) Polym. Mater. Sci. Eng., 62:731-735).
Biodegradable hydrogels have also been developed for use in controlled release systems and serve as carriers of biologically active materials such as hormones, enzymes, antibiotics, antineoplastic agents, and cell suspensions. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,543 to Cohen.
Hydrogel compositions are also commonly used as substrates for cell and tissue culture, impression materials for prosthetics, wound-packing materials, or as solid phase materials in size exclusion or affinity chromatography applications. For example, nonporous, deformed and/or derivatized agarose hydrogel compositions have been used in high-performance liquid chromatography and affinity chromatography methods (Li et al. (1990) Preparative Biochem. 20:107-121), and superporous agarose hydrogel beads have been used as a support in hydrophobic interaction chromatography (Gustavsson et al. (1999) J. Chromatography 830:275-284).
In the pharmaceutical fields, hydrogel monomers (natural or synthetic) are commonly added to pharmaceutical compositions (with an initiator and, sometimes, cross-inking agents) and then allowed to polymerize, thereby encapsulating a guest pharmaceutical within a hydrogel matrix. Proper choice of hydrogel macromers can produce membranes with a range of permeability, pore sizes and degradation rates suitable for a variety of applications in surgery, medical diagnosis and treatment. These techniques are used to provide microsphere carrier systems for drug targeting or controlled release systems. For example, cross-linked hydrogel microspheres have been used to encapsulate islet cells for the treatment of diabetes (Lim et al. (1980) Science 210:908-910) or cancer cells that produce cancer-suppressing materials (U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,497), and biodegradable hydrogel microspheres are widely used to encapsulate a wide variety of drug compositions, most commonly peptides and proteins (Wang et al. (1997) Pharm. Dev. and Technology 2:135-142). In these applications, the particular hydrogel system employed in the formulation is selected to provide long-term entrapment of the guest cell or pharmaceutical substance (e.g., to provide for targeted delivery or sustained- or delayed-release pharmacokinetics). Alternatively, hydrogels are employed in amphipathic copolymer systems as a hydrophilic component. In such cases the hydrogel is present in relatively large amounts such that the polymer system is capable of absorbing large amounts of water. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,526,938 and 4,942,035 to Churchill et al.